Benevolent Misanthrope:So our Christian founders would have been happy with the "War on Christmas" as described by FOX.

Excellent.

Not to mention that Christmas did not become an official holiday until 1870 and our "Founding Fathers" spent the first December 25th after the ratification of the Constitution working since Congress was in session that day.

catmandu:Benevolent Misanthrope: So our Christian founders would have been happy with the "War on Christmas" as described by FOX.

Excellent.

Not to mention that Christmas did not become an official holiday until 1870 and our "Founding Fathers" spent the first December 25th after the ratification of the Constitution working since Congress was in session that day.

catmandu:Benevolent Misanthrope: So our Christian founders would have been happy with the "War on Christmas" as described by FOX.

Excellent.

Not to mention that Christmas did not become an official holiday until 1870 and our "Founding Fathers" spent the first December 25th after the ratification of the Constitution working since Congress was in session that day.

edmo:Weren't the Puritans the Christians who founded our Christian country after fleeing religious persecution at home by Christians?

If by fleeing religious persecution, you mean left England because England was upset that they wanted to overthrow the Church of England and establish a new government with theocratic rule under their Church, then yes, they were fleeing religious persecution.

farkbot42:catmandu: Benevolent Misanthrope: So our Christian founders would have been happy with the "War on Christmas" as described by FOX.

Excellent.

Not to mention that Christmas did not become an official holiday until 1870 and our "Founding Fathers" spent the first December 25th after the ratification of the Constitution working since Congress was in session that day.

This!

Why did our founding fathers hate Merica?

Christmas as we know it is a Victorian invention. Certainly the current incarnation of Santa is.

The main reason Puritans didn't like Christmas was that it was a raucously popular holiday in late medieval England. Each year, rich landowners would throw open their doors to the poor and give them food and drink as an act of charity. The poorest man in the parish was named the "Lord of Misrule," and the rich would wait upon him at feasts that often descended into bawdy drunkenness. Such decadence never impressed religious purists. "Men dishonor Christ more in the 12 days of Christmas," wrote the 16th-century clergyman Hugh Latimer, "than in all the 12 months besides."

Christmas back then was pronounced in a way to rhyme with "Spring Break Girls Gone Wild" in Merry Old. Who among us doesn't want to see "Merry Christmas" writ large in yellow snow letters on your front lawn by some upperclass posh who's actually way into Saturnalia?

Frank N Stein:Puritanism was probably the shiattiest main-stream Christians sect this country has ever seen.

Oh no, Southern Baptists are still worse. Puritans were all about the sexy-time, including sanctioned pre-martial diddling - and you could even have sex standing up. And the less said about Missouri Synod Lutherans the better...

And my opinion still stands that this is like the "microwaved water cannot grow plants" urban legend but with a new twist. People who start stuff like this need to have their heads banged hard with a hammer.

TV's Vinnie:palelizard: edmo: Weren't the Puritans the Christians who founded our Christian country after fleeing religious persecution at home by Christians? It's like a big wonder wheel of same ol' shiat.

Well, that 'persecution' was more like everyone telling them to stop being assholes.

So, they originated the helphelpwerebeingoppressed.jpg meme too?

Oh God, yes!

Now, they were being thrown in prison by the government. But, that was mainly because they had chopped the king's head off and managed to drag England through a decade of effectively anarchistic fascism (yes, I know that sounds contradictory, but the Puritans tried really hard). And their solution to being imprisoned was to figure out more ways to establish the Second Puritan Police State, so if anybody had some good old-fashioned oppression coming, it was the Puritans

Benevolent Misanthrope:farkbot42: catmandu: Benevolent Misanthrope: So our Christian founders would have been happy with the "War on Christmas" as described by FOX.

Excellent.

Not to mention that Christmas did not become an official holiday until 1870 and our "Founding Fathers" spent the first December 25th after the ratification of the Constitution working since Congress was in session that day.

This!

Why did our founding fathers hate Merica?

Christmas as we know it is a Victorian invention. Certainly the current incarnation of Santa is.

Agreed. Victoria and Albert, being the good Germans that they were, brought a Christmas tree into the palace and soon everyone wanted one. They also promoted the idea of Christmas being all about family and the kiddies, not the drunken adult debauch it had been. Add in Dickens' Christmas Carol, Clement Moore's "Visit from St. Nicholas, and Thomas Nast's later drawings and you have the "Victorian Christmas"

Victoria and Albert and the kiddies (the illustration that sold a million trees):

And my opinion still stands that this is like the "microwaved water cannot grow plants" urban legend but with a new twist. People who start stuff like this need to have their heads banged hard with a hammer.

Thank you! So is that thread in the bad zone of fark now?Heh, never heard that urban legend. And I agree, I was pivoting off the fact plants use the air to communicate, thought I was clear regarding what I said..oh I'm just grumbling..I'll do that.

SearchN:So sick of people saying it's a war on Christmas. It's not. A vocal minority of atheist biatch, that's it. The majority don't care.

/agnostic//married a ministers daughter

Atheists didn't start anything. Bill O'Reilly got his panties in a bunch because people were using "Happy Holidays" - which had been occurring for decades. I even have Christmas cards from my childhood (circa late 70s / early 80s with a farking Nativity below "Happy Holidays". Saying atheists are responsible for the War on Christmas is like saying Poland is responsible for WWII because they were vocally not-Germany

catmandu:Benevolent Misanthrope: farkbot42: catmandu: Benevolent Misanthrope: So our Christian founders would have been happy with the "War on Christmas" as described by FOX.

Excellent.

Not to mention that Christmas did not become an official holiday until 1870 and our "Founding Fathers" spent the first December 25th after the ratification of the Constitution working since Congress was in session that day.

This!

Why did our founding fathers hate Merica?

Christmas as we know it is a Victorian invention. Certainly the current incarnation of Santa is.

Agreed. Victoria and Albert, being the good Germans that they were, brought a Christmas tree into the palace and soon everyone wanted one. They also promoted the idea of Christmas being all about family and the kiddies, not the drunken adult debauch it had been. Add in Dickens' Christmas Carol, Clement Moore's "Visit from St. Nicholas, and Thomas Nast's later drawings and you have the "Victorian Christmas"

Victoria and Albert and the kiddies (the illustration that sold a million trees):

[i283.photobucket.com image 491x650]

And holy hell, just let some of those fundie prudes get hold of Vickie and Al's private documents. Talk about debauchery!

It's almost as if--now, I know this sounds totally crazy--it's almost as if the "War on Christmas" people are nitwits who are ignorant of everything outside of some warped daydream about what it was like in the 1950s when we kicked everybody's ass and non-superior people stayed in the fields and in the kitchen where they belonged.

phalamir:SearchN: So sick of people saying it's a war on Christmas. It's not. A vocal minority of atheist biatch, that's it. The majority don't care.

/agnostic//married a ministers daughter

Atheists didn't start anything. Bill O'Reilly got his panties in a bunch because people were using "Happy Holidays" - which had been occurring for decades. I even have Christmas cards from my childhood (circa late 70s / early 80s with a farking Nativity below "Happy Holidays". Saying atheists are responsible for the War on Christmas is like saying Poland is responsible for WWII because they were vocally not-Germany

America is responsible for WWII. If they had pre-emptively striked like Bush did the war would not have occurred... duh.

catmandu:Benevolent Misanthrope: farkbot42: catmandu: Benevolent Misanthrope: So our Christian founders would have been happy with the "War on Christmas" as described by FOX.

Excellent.

Not to mention that Christmas did not become an official holiday until 1870 and our "Founding Fathers" spent the first December 25th after the ratification of the Constitution working since Congress was in session that day.

This!

Why did our founding fathers hate Merica?

Christmas as we know it is a Victorian invention. Certainly the current incarnation of Santa is.

Agreed. Victoria and Albert, being the good Germans that they were, brought a Christmas tree into the palace and soon everyone wanted one. They also promoted the idea of Christmas being all about family and the kiddies, not the drunken adult debauch it had been. Add in Dickens' Christmas Carol, Clement Moore's "Visit from St. Nicholas, and Thomas Nast's later drawings and you have the "Victorian Christmas"

Victoria and Albert and the kiddies (the illustration that sold a million trees):

[i283.photobucket.com image 491x650]

And they also basically completed the transformation from Saint Nicolas, a Turkish bishop, into Santa Claus and Father Christmas. By the twentieth century it was pretty much the quasi-secular holiday we know today.

SearchN:So sick of people saying it's a war on Christmas. It's not. A vocal minority of atheist biatch, that's it. The majority don't care.

/agnostic//married a ministers daughter

I don't think it's the atheists, so much as people of other faiths that got fed up with Christians saying the holiday was all theirs, and everyone else should STFU. For some reason it seems that many Christians want everyone to do things only THEIR way, and if anyone disagrees, they are 'persecuting' Christianity. There are many other faiths that follow different morals, beliefs, and of course Gods.

American Christian power brokers think it is just peachy to point at the bible and say 'God says so, so we are going to make everybody follow His word, and we're going to try and make it law, regardless of what others believe. And if anyone asks why there should be a law that is based on their faith, 'morality' and 'family values' are used to uphold their beliefs.

Now don't get me wrong, I believe it's a vocal minority of Christians that kicks around the 'religious persecution' ball. Christians I talk to seem as fed up with it as I am. They don't care if you say 'Happy Holidays' or 'Merry Christmas'. They don't care about the origins of the holiday. They just want to spend time with their family and celebrate the holiday in their way in the privacy of their house. Same with me.